FEATURE:
A Year for Acknowledgment and Progress?
IMAGE CREDIT: Kelsey Dake
I think about women in music a lot. It is International Woman’s Day on Sunday (8th March), and it is a day where we celebrate women’s rights, call for chance and ask for a more equal world. This year’s International Women’s Day seems very appropriate and something we can all agree on:
“International Women's Day 2020 campaign theme is #EachforEqual
An equal world is an enabled world.
Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions - all day, every day.
We can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women's achievements.
Collectively, each one of us can help create a gender equal world.
Let's all be #EachforEqual”.
Music, like so many other industries and corners of the landscape, is affected by sexism and a lack of gender equality. Although Reading & Leeds Festivals added some more women to their line-up very recently, they were called out because of their male-heavy line-up. It is sad that there is still so much ignorance of great music made by women, across so many genres and styles. Festivals, especially larger ones, are culpable of lacking awareness and ignoring a lot of great female artists. Festivals like Glastonbury are yet to announce their bill, but I think we will see a fifty-fifty gender balance; they have already booked one female headliner, Taylor Swift. There are minor steps occurring regarding festival bills, but it is shocking that we are still so far away from seeing equality in 2020 – the rest of this year needs to be about reversing past omissions and acknowledging the great women who deserve exposure and their opportunity.
It is not only festivals that have a problem with sexism. The music industry as a whole has an issue, but the past couple of years has been defined by incredible women dominating and releasing some of the best music around. It is impossible for me to name all the great female artists who have strengthened music and could own festivals, but artists such as Grimes, Halsey, The Big Moon and Georgia have already released huge albums. Last year, FKA twigs, Solange, Little Simz and Lizzo were among the tremendous women making 2019 bright, varied and packed with wonder. I think there was the assumption – or still is – women are solo artists and, as bands are favoured at festivals, that explains the lack of women on bills. From female-fronted bands like Wolf Alice and Amyl and the Sniffers to female bands like The Big Moon, there is no shortage of options. If you want women who can shred it with the best of the rest, there is Anna Calvi and Sharon Van Etten; confident and impassioned performers like Lizzo and Christine and the Queens can rule, whilst Billie Eilish is a sensational fit for any bill. In a wider sense, the lack of respect provided to women is unacceptable. I think music is best when everything is embraced, but I look around and there are still woeful imbalances that are not being corrected.
It is mostly women calling for change, with relatively few men in the industry joining them in condemnation and protest. I keep saying how 2020 needs to be a year for clear vision and balance, and International Women’s Day will shine a light on the importance of women in music and how, when you listen to the best music of the moment, so much of it is coming from them. There are articles that state how we really need more women producers and musicians in order to work towards parity. In terms of producers, there are women in studios and many others coming through – studios are still male-heavy, and I think there is this assumption that women cannot produce or do not want to. Whilst there might be fewer women making music than men, there are more than enough stunning artists out there. The imbalance and ignorance has very little to do with statistics and percentage graphs: more accurately those in power (mainly men) are peddling the same excuse when women are not booked for festivals and, when it comes to change, how many men are actively committed to listening to women’s voices and asking why so many women are leaving music because of abuse and exclusion?! Rather than end on a sour or angry note, it is International Women’s Day on Sunday, so I will end with a playlist that puts some of music’s finest women in the spotlight. Of course, there are many more women – and many more current women – making the music industry so strong and promising, all of whom deserve equality and a fairer industry. Let’s hope, after the countless social media posts regarding women in music and why International Women’s Day is so important, it will spur those in power to…
MAKE promises they can keep!